What are You Baking the Week of August 3, 2025?

[Mike Nolan]

It's been a long time since I've made peanut butter cookies or BLJ's molasses cookies.

[BakerAunt]

We used up the bread on Friday, and I did not have time to bake more loaves as I was busy with errands this morning and jam making this afternoon. I decided to bake rolls after dinner, as they would be faster and not require having the oven on for too long, as our heat and humidity have returned. I decided to bake Maple-Walnut and Oat Rolls, the King Arthur recipe that I baked last week with my changes, but this time increasing the water from 2 oz. to 3 oz. The dough was less dense, and the rolls baked beautifully, with better rise. The shaping is tricky, due to the chopped walnuts.

[Mike Nolan]

Making another batch of Bahn Mi dough, this time with 6.66% medium rye flour in it.

[BakerAunt]

I had two peaches left from my jam making, so on Saturday morning, I baked Peachy Keen Muffins, a recipe that I adapted from one on the King Arthur site. I made them as six large muffins, and I froze two for future breakfasts. I had time for a leisurely breakfast because the town hosted the annual triathlon today, and I had no desire to try driving to the farmers market at 9 a.m. with legions of people doing the bicycling leg racing in the other direction. By 10 a.m., the road was clear.

In the afternoon, I baked Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from dough I made a week ago. I cut the baking time on all trays at the end, as they sometimes can brown too quickly. I think that is due to the current state of the sourdough I use for them. It is hot for baking, but we turned on the air conditioner because crackers are important!

[Mike Nolan]

Adding 6.6% medium rye flour to the Banh Mi dough made a noticeable change in the flavor, but if I hadn't known it was rye flour, I might not have guessed that, because it didn't look or taste like a rye bread. I may try going up to about 12% rye flour next time and/or put in some whole wheat flour. I think this recipe will be able to handle a lot of variants. :sigh: 🙂

I don't think adding the rye flour affected the texture much, though I did forget one step during the final proofing and I probably didn't do the shaping as precisely as I have before, as some of them popped open a bit. I don't think that will affect their ability to be used as hot dog buns, though.

Still crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside, but this test does reinforce my original impression that the rolls I had in NYC 30+ years ago had some rye or whole wheat flour in them.

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